Regarding gaming performance, I'm still seeing Atom Z2760 machines as a platform for legacy games. For a specific audience, this is an added value.

Hi Chris, I have just stuffed around with some of the games was a timely reminder of why I hate legacy games and all the stuffing around nevertheless, results:* Starcraft installs, loads etc, some funny elements on the menu lag but seems playable however being limited to 800x600 makes it somewhat unplayable as it doesn't go full screen.* Orion 2 couldn't get to work just a heap of errors, tried a few things wasn't gonna happen* Masters of orion worked fine through dosbox, I think you could do the same for 2 but I'm out of time to play around.

I only wish there was an option to buy it without the keyboard dock, so far I couldn't find a shop that was over here.

rob

haha thats pretty funny, not sure where you are but in the States they are struggling to find models that have the keyboard. Staples etc all have without keyboard. But yeah same thing in Aus looks like all the SKU's coming here are for with keyboard. Same with the Asus 810.

I'm in Europe, Netherlands to be specific. The keyboard isn't that useful to me, and it has no additional battery in there to make it even more so-so..

I don't mind it not having a battery, keeps it nice and light but I find myself not using it too often. With the Asus/HP and other docks you will find you have to use them more due to no usb on the tablet, but yeah the battery in the dock is nice for the extension it gives you.

If you are in the market for a tablet that has options for stylus, desktop dock and removable keyboard ... you are not going to be happy with what you find. At least none of the consumer oriented Windows 8 tablets I am aware of offer a decent desktop dock accessory (power, video, audio, usb, ethernet). Samsung's Ativ Smart PC has all its ports in the tablet body which means you will be fiddling with their port covers all the time if you want to dock it regularly. Samsung's developer Series 7 tablet from last year had a dock so it is beyond me why they wouldn't announce such an accessory with the launch of Ativ Smart PC. Hopefully this changes soon with more offerings next year.

Thanks for the review. The first in depth review I've seen so far. I was very interested in this model, but after a few hands-on experiences I came away disappointed. For one, I found the inking to be anything but lag free. In every time I've tried it, ink always showed up about 1/2-3/4 inch behind the pen. Maybe it was because of the S-Memo app?

Also the device was much larger than I expected, holding it one-handed in landscape was pretty impossible unless you cradled it. Build quality was also pretty low, feeling very plasticy. It's like they took the same build quality of my Galaxy S3 but applied it to a device 10x larger and heavier. It just doesn't feel solid at all.

And having the larger screen and low res made it more pixelated than the Surface let alone an ipad or even android tablets.

I guess I've no choice but to wait for the Surface Pro and pay twice as much.

Ah bugger wish I could edit that. A lot of tablet info floating around my heads at the moment, sorry about that.

Thanks for the review. The first in depth review I've seen so far. I was very interested in this model, but after a few hands-on experiences I came away disappointed. For one, I found the inking to be anything but lag free. In every time I've tried it, ink always showed up about 1/2-3/4 inch behind the pen. Maybe it was because of the S-Memo app?

Also the device was much larger than I expected, holding it one-handed in landscape was pretty impossible unless you cradled it. Build quality was also pretty low, feeling very plasticy. It's like they took the same build quality of my Galaxy S3 but applied it to a device 10x larger and heavier. It just doesn't feel solid at all.

And having the larger screen and low res made it more pixelated than the Surface let alone an ipad or even android tablets.

I guess I've no choice but to wait for the Surface Pro and pay twice as much.

Yes as mentioned the metro based inking apps for some reason lag but theres plenty of youtube footage showing that the inking in OneNote etc is flawless. As for build quality I think its all subjective a little, I agree the back is plasticy and surface like build would be great but im not sure when metal alloy casing became the benchmark for a solid build or not, for me despite a plastic backing I contend its solidly built.

I think the 11.6" will be an issue for some but look im not a body builder by any means but I haven't had any issues with using the device on handed in either landscape or portrait mode. I guess what I wanted to highlight more than anything and it kind of goes to the sub-title of the article, is that the Clover trail atom processor is very capable and I think will do the job for quite a lot of tasks people might use a tablet for or want to be mobile with. Theres also Lenovo and Dell atom options that come in at 10" which will likely have the better build quality.

But as alluded to in the second post, if extra weight and lesser battery life is not an issue for you then yeah you can get the FHD screens on the pro or oem pro models but the trades off for those are weight, lesser battery life and the price as you mentioned.

After reading this, I finnaly deceided to go with desktop + atom tablet route. From what you say, and judging by some youtube videos, atom should be plenty powerful for my mobile/couch needs. And vivotab is way too expensive.

I will be traveling to USA in january, so I am wondering if someone can give me an advice where to buy this?
I searched a bit and found a mall that has tigerdirect retail place (compUSA?) right around the airport. So that's probably my first stop upon arrival
So my question is, is it possible for me, as a foreinger, to make sure they have a tablet in stock on a certain date? to make a reservation?

Also, while i'm at it, is there a special proceadure i need to follow concernign first battery load/cycle?

Not sure if I would need the 'power'of the i5, and am looking at the Samsung ATIV with the digitizer. It's still a x86 tablet, so all 'legacy' software will apply. The only thing is the plastic back, but 'there's a cover for that'.... ;-)
Looking at battery life, the Atom might have the best all-round thing going on.

Do people already have real world numbers on battery life for the i5/7 W8 tablets out there? Despite all the W8 optimisations on battery life, I cannot shake the idea that battery life will be roughly half of that of Atom/ARM cpu's.

Just to let people know there is another alternative with the Acer Iconia W700 which the base model being £599: i3 Processor, 4GM RAM, 8 Hours battery life, wireless keyboard, caddy and so on, just thought I'd throw that out there, gets released this friday, I'll be getting one in hopefully 2 weeks.

After reading this, I finnaly deceided to go with desktop + atom tablet route. From what you say, and judging by some youtube videos, atom should be plenty powerful for my mobile/couch needs. And vivotab is way too expensive.

I will be traveling to USA in january, so I am wondering if someone can give me an advice where to buy this?I searched a bit and found a mall that has tigerdirect retail place (compUSA?) right around the airport. So that's probably my first stop upon arrival So my question is, is it possible for me, as a foreinger, to make sure they have a tablet in stock on a certain date? to make a reservation?

Also, while i'm at it, is there a special proceadure i need to follow concernign first battery load/cycle?

I hate hijacking a thread with off topic questions, but i had to

Heya, the Microsoft store should have a full range of stock by then and best buy etc also stock many of the win8 tablets. By the time you are over there shouldn't be an issue with getting this or other tablets from retailers.

The battery question is tricky in the sense that there's a Lot of different explanations and opinions out there, for me I just went with burning it down and fully charging it a couple of times at the very least this will provide more accurate battery numbers.

Do people already have real world numbers on battery life for the i5/7 W8 tablets out there? Despite all the W8 optimisations on battery life, I cannot shake the idea that battery life will be roughly half of that of Atom/ARM cpu's.

rob

There's no official reviews or benchmarks yet but from the people with the Samsung pro the consensus seems to be around 5 hours of constant usage, 3-4 of movies (with high screen brightness) and 6-7 hrs with power saver mode and silent fan enabled (throttles CPU to 1.2 ghz)